About Kindred K-12
Our Mission
We empower K-12 educators to help their students build durable skills needed to prosper in the 21st century:
Kindred K-12 helps educators find, create, and use high-quality materials suited for their classroom, encouraging sound pedagogical practices while respecting teachers' autonomy and professional judgment.
Kindred aims to help America live up to the promise of the "American Dream" - that every member of our society deserves an opportunity to succeed.
Our belief is that by providing teachers with the tools they need to achieve their goals as educators, more students will be offered the opportunity to succeed in school - and beyond.
The "Age of AI" has put one of the most powerful tools in human history at virtually everyone's fingertips, making it all the more important that we as a society understand how to wield that power responsibly.
Our Journey
Kindred K-12's journey began nearly a decade ago when Charles Monnett asked his wife Lexi, then a middle school social studies and language arts teacher in Cupertino, CA, why she spent so much time outside of school creating materials for her classroom.
Lexi began to elaborate on just some of the difficulties teachers face getting high-quality materials into their classrooms:
Each teacher has their own goals, interests, strengths, and weaknesses
The population of students in each classroom brings unique challenges and opportunities
District-mandated content may lead to disengaged students
This conversation stuck in Charles's mind, and for years he pressed Lexi on what could be done to help teachers use the plethora of high-quality educational material available on the internet.
Charles started Kindred K-12 to help teachers be able to actually use the plethora of already available, high-quality educational resources and materials in their classrooms, saving them time and democratizing access to high-quality materials for students across America.
Our Founding Team
Charles Monnett has been working with AI and machine learning professionally for nearly a decade, with a particular focus on "Natural Language Processing" or NLP.
Prior to Kindred K-12, he was the first employee at SupportLogic, a pioneer in bringing AI and NLP to B2B technical support. There he led data platform, machine learning, and Generative AI efforts company-wide in both engineering and product strategy roles. He holds multiple patents for innovative AI- and NLP-based product solutions.
He holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois and is currently pursuing an M.S.Ed., from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
Charles is an avid runner and reader, with deep interests in nutrition and language.
Lexi Monnett is a lifelong educator, having begun teaching younger children gymnastics at the age of 13.
After earning a B.A., in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois, she became a middle school social studies and language arts teacher in Cupertino, CA.
She left the classroom to earn an M.A., in History from Stanford University, where she studied with Sam Wineburg of DIG (formerly Stanford History Education Group or SHEG). Since then, she has been an independent curriculum provider creating educational materials for non-profits in North Carolina K-12 schools, including the study of historically Black schoolhouses in central North Carolina.
Lexi is a talented painter, having painted several murals (one more than twenty feet long), and enjoys painting en plein air.
Charles and Lexi met in the cafeteria lunch line in high school.